As they began the steep descent on Centre Road, past Breadloaf Hill, Arthur saw that Santa and his reindeer were still raring to take off from the Shewfelts’ asphalt roof. Historically, they tended to remain aloft until Groundhog Day. The lawn ornaments, three-foot versions of Santa’s elves that more resembled Snow White’s dwarfs, would often hang around until replaced by Easter bunnies and duckies.
On the neighbouring acreage: a blighted landscape of rusting cars and trucks. If he wasn’t mistaken, that was Stoney by his garage, with a camera crew — he could see their van, a Global TV logo. And parked nearby, silently seeking rescue from its abductor: Arthur’s extraordinarily rendered Fargo.
“Mookie, please stop behind that big arbutus and let me out. I see my truck.”
As they drove off, he toted his bags to a grassy lay-by, then slipped from behind tree cover and up a mossy path behind Stoney’s garage. The hot-air balloon, deflated but suspended by ropes from tree limbs, afforded a blind. After further advance, he could hear Stoney crowing behind the TV van.
“I figured early on this was a phony set-up, so I decided to play him along.”
A woman interviewer: “Charley Thiessen, you mean?”
“It didn’t click who he was right away. I figured him for some lowly underling.”
“And at what point did you realize it was a set-up?”
“Well, between me and you, I got real suspicious when he wouldn’t take a toke.”
Arthur finally found his way to his truck, ducking behind the cab. The tires were up, the hood warm, and the keys on the dash. Not far away, Stoney was struggling with his recall of the mystery man, Burton. “Dude with a goatee is all I remember. I’d just crawled out of the sack, so everything was kind of out of focus, eh.”
“Okay, Bob, can we get a picture of you in front of your cool truck?”
As they approached, Arthur bent so low he could see Stoney’s untied sneakers by the wheel wells.
“Yeah, this here’s my sweetheart, my honeybun. Forty years in service, still street legal.”
“That’s a great shot. Kiss it again.”
Camera lights blazed. As they sauntered off, Stoney pitched them about Hot Air Holidays’ balloon launch. “Test run to Ponsonby Island, winds permitting, otherwise we go wherever they take us. Gala event, a spectacle you don’t want to miss. It’s BYOB. you can score your party juice at the General Store.”
Arthur slipped in behind the wheel. As the engine came quickly to life, Stoney turned, startled, but the Fargo was already pulling around the garage, down the driveway, out the open gate. A quick stop to retrieve his luggage and he was on his way.
A perfectly executed freedom ride. Ray DiPalma would have been proud.
At home, he was greeted with muddy-pawed exuberance by Homer and a weary nuzzle from old Barney’s muzzle. The two mousers, Underfoot and Shiftless, tangled themselves in his legs by way of hello, then wandered off, already bored with him.
The Fargo locked in the garage, its keys secreted in the back of the pantry, Arthur accepted Zack Flett’s tight, sinewy grip and Savannah’s enveloping arms, and exchanged greetings with the roadside bike-path boosters sprawled about the parlour. Then he changed into his grubs and let Homer take him on a tour of the farm.
Fences were sturdy, the barn in excellent repair, solar panels added to the roof of Margaret’s neighbouring house — Zack and Savannah were almost ready to move into it, minimizing the threat of awkward sleepwalking incursions.
He spent the rest of that day in the fields and the garden, in the greenhouse and the goat corral, and felt the turmoil of recent weeks slip away. Yes, he must come up with some impregnable plan to avoid that royal commission hearing. Could he persuade Abzal and Bully he was too close to critical events? Yes, an excellent solution — he’d explain he was a potential witness. One can’t be both counsel and witness.
Pleased with this solution, he settled into his club chair and turned on the set for the six o’clock news, while his housemates sparred in the kitchen over who ought to dispose of a dead shrew, Underfoot’s gift. Nullus est instar domus. There is no place like home.
Arthur enjoyed several minutes of Jill Svetlikoff and her sister and niece rejoining their families in a clamorous welcome at the Regina airport that had the news anchor wiping his eyes. This was interrupted by a bulletin.
“The Bhashyistan government has fallen,” the announcer said. “Russian media has advised that President Ivanovich, his family, and advisers are surrounded in the presidential palace, seeking to negotiate terms of surrender.”
The Mishin Statement
A Blog by Vlad Mishin — Version: English
Dateline: Saturday, January 8. From the Steps of the Number Two Imperial Palace of the Former Ultimate Leader for Life.
Good evening, readers and fans. And thank you for making the Mishin Statement the most popular blog of the new year. My front-page Izvestia dispatches have been picked up around the world by now [click for list], but as usual it is time for reflections from one who has had the fortune to be at the centre of the whirlwind — though a whirlwind that, as Catherine the Great complained to her husband, “petered out.”
That’s bad, isn’t it. Forgive me.
Anyway, it turned out that the dreaded elite guard were cowards to a man, and when their colonel told Igor Muckhali Ivanovich they weren’t willing to die for him, that’s when the negotiations began. The Mishin Statement is now able to confirm that Mad Igor and his retinue will face trial, but because they spared bloodshed by surrendering, the provisional government has agreed not to put them against the wall. (You read it here first. There was a lively debate over that one among the provisional leadership.)
Ex-President for Life Ivanovich remains with his family and advisers in the main palace [click to enlarge] which will be their prison until the BDRF decides where to put them.
Meanwhile, there is dancing in the streets, and hugging and kissing, and the Stolichnaya is flowing. (Expect a high birth rate in nine months!) Never have I seen such joy since the election of President Putin in my own country. Check out the podcast below where you will see Vlad Mishin flailing helplessly, being carried on the shoulders of revelling students.
Behind me, as I write, is the number two imperial palace [click here], in which the provisional government is quartered for the time being. I have just returned from there after a few interesting words with Abzal Erzhan, who has been named chair of the provisional council. He told me he is determined to create a democracy in a land that has never known one. Many, including your faithful correspondent, hope that is not a naive goal.
“Not everyone agrees,” my friend confided, “but I favour the British system, a house of the common people.”
Yours truly is neither a politician nor a great student of history, merely a recorder of events, but I humbly pressed our own Russian model on him, recalling Lenin’s line: “It is true that liberty is precious — so precious that it must be rationed.” Jesting right along with me, Abzal quoted the even more famous line from Churchilclass="underline" “Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others.”
I question whether that will hold true in the cauldron of the future.
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On Saturday, Arthur bundled up against a rare coastal snowfall to head off to the General Store, a welcome return to his hiking regime. The coffee lounge was sparsely populated, with just a couple of carpenters on break from roofing the new bar.